I'm not a recruiter. I work for an online job board, so my work is more focused on the advertising side of recruitment. However, we do spend a great deal of time, money, and effort providing education and outreach to employers and job seekers. We hope to help employers recruit more effectively, and provide job seekers with good and useful career advice. Okay, that was a big intro. I promise the business development ideas is coming...

In our capacity, I've dealt with many chambers, providing seminars to the small to mid size employers on employment branding. If they can more clearly define, and more strongly promote, their employment brand, they should attract better candidates, increase productivity and retention.

That got me thinking. If there was a way to band together a community of businesses to all launch new and stronger branding, the result could be an increase in the level of work and happy employees in the community, leading to a stronger local economy.

Is there a way to target smaller communities, maybe just outside of the more popular hubs, and provide recruiting services to the whole? The benefits could include an increase of people moving to the area for work. When job seekers are looking for work, if they see a large number of outstanding opportunities in a specific community, there will be more interest overall.

So, that's my idea... lame? or are there legs?